l.i) 


'^A 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


BX  9225  .D2  D32  1899 
Dabney,  Charles  William, 

1855-1945,  , 

In  memoriam 


Shelf. 


R(_M!EK'r    I.KWIS    DAIIXICV, 
H:iin|)<len   Siiliiey,   Va,,   IS7L'  or  'T:i 


IN  MEMORIAM 


Robert  Lewis  Dabney 


Born,  March  5th,  1820 
Died,  January  3rd,  1898 


Prove  all  things.     Hold  fast  that  which  is  good." 


The  University  of  Tennessee  Press 

Knoxviile. 

1899 


'i  If  ^'i'^W  of  the  addresses  and  papers  commemorative  of  the 
^1  life  and  services  of  our  father,  Doctor  Robert  Lewis 
Dabiiej-,  are  republished  licreiii  for  distribution  among 
his  friends.  It  has  not  been  thought  proper  to  print  any  of 
the  hundreds  of  kind  letters  received  by  his  family,  and  it  has 
not  been  possible  to  include  any  of  the  resolutions  or  other 
formal  expressions  of  appreciation. 

Three  pictures  have  been  .selected  to  show  our  father  as  he 
appeared  at  the  two  periods  when  he  was  best  known  to  his 
surviving  pupils  and  friends.  The  first  two  photographs  were 
taken  at  Hampden  Sydney,  Va.,  in  the  spring  either  of  1872 
or  of  187.'!.  The  third  was  taken  at  Austin,  Texas,  about 
1892,  and  after  he  had  lo.st  his  eyesight. 

We  send  this  little  publication  to  our  father's  and  our  own 
dear  friends,  with  grateful  acknowledgments  of  their  loving 
sympathy. 

Ch.vkles  W.   Dabnkv, 

Knoxville,  Tenn. 
vS.^MUF.L  B.  Dabnkv, 

Victoria,  Texas. 
Lkwis  M.  Dabnev, 

Dallas,  Texas. 
Jaiiuar)-  the  Third,  Eighteen  Hundred  and  Ninety-nine. 


CONTENTS. 


Portrait,  1872 Frontispiece 

Robert  Lewis  Dabney — A  Sketch,  by  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  C.  Johnson...     5 

Portrait— Standing,  1872  Opp.  17 

The  Man  and  Scholar,  by  Rev.  Dr.  James  B.  Shearer 17 

The  Christian  Warrior,  by  Rev.  Dr.  Benjamin  M.  Palmer 20 

The  Funeral    22 

Our  Loss,  by  Rev.  Dr.  G.  B.  Strickler  24 

Regnant  Men — Funeral  address,  by  Rev.  Dr.  Moses  D.  Hoge 26 

A  Light  Gone,  by  Col.  L.  S.  Marye 30 

Portrait,   1892   Opp.  33 

A  Lover  of  the  South,  by  Mr.  J.   H.    Rice,   Jr 33 

The  Teacher  and  Friend,  by  Rev.  Dr.  Thornton  R.  Sampson 37 

.\  Tribute,  by  Rev.  Dr.  S.  Taylor  Martin 39 


ROBERT  LEWIS  DABNEY—A  SKETCH. 

BY  KKV.  I)K.  THOMAS  C.  JOHNSON. 
I  From  Union  Seminary  Magazine,  No.  3,  Jan. -Feb.,  1898,  page  158.] 
Robert  Lewis  Dabncy  was  born  in  Loui.sa  county  in  Virginia, 
(in  tlu'  ."^itli  of  Marcii,  1820,  of  good  old  Hanover  lineage.  In 
June.  ls;i(),  lie  entered  the  Sophomore  class,  half  advanced,  of 
Hampden  Sydney  College.  He  completed  the  remaining  part 
of  the  St)phomorc,  and  the  Junior  course,  and  left  the  college 
in  1837.  While  at  College  he  professed  conversion  and,  after  re- 
turning home  in  November,  1837,  united  with  the  Providence 
Presbyterian  Church,  James  Wharey,  pastor.  He  then  taught 
a  country  school  for  two  years.  In  December,  1839,  he  entered 
the  University  of  Virginia,  from  which  he  graduated  in  July 
of  1812  with  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  He  again  taught 
a  select  private  school  for  more  than  two  years.  In  October,  1844, 
he  entered  Cnion  Seminary  in  Virginia,  took  the  full  three  years 
course  in  two  years  and  was  licensed  to  preach  in  May,  1846.  He 
spent  one  \ear  as  a  missionary  in  his  native  county,  at  the  end  of 
which  time  he  was  called  to  be  the  pastor  of  Tinkling  Spring 
church  in  .\ugusta  county.  Here  he  performed  for  a  considerable 
time  the  functions  of  the  pastorate  to  a  large  church  and  those  of 
the  head  teacher  of  a  classical  school.  After  a  pastorate  of  over 
si.x  years  he  was  elected  to  the  chair  of  Ecclesiastical  History  and 
Polity  in  his  alma  mater,  Union  Theological  Seminary,  which  he 
filled  until  1870.  Meanwhile,  in  1869.  he  had  been  appointed 
Adjunct  Professor  of  Theology,  and  he  was  made  full  Professor 
in  this  department  in  1870.  He  continued  to  dignify  this  im- 
portant chair  imtil  1883,  when  owing  to  bronchial  troubles  he  was 
warned  by  his  physicians  to  seek  a  milder  climate.  Accordingly 
he  accepted  an  invitation  to  the  chair  of  Mental  and  Moral  Philoso- 
phy in  the  University  of  Texas,  at  Austin,  the  capital  of  that  state. 
This  position  he  continued  to  fill  with  unflagging  ability,  notwith- 
standing the  increasing  infirmities  of  age  and  the  total  loss  of  his 
eyesight,  till  1894.     Since  he  retired  from  that  position  he  has 


6  Robert  Lewis  Dabney — hi  Mcmoriam 

given  special  courses  of  lectures  at  different  institutions  and  has 
been  active  with  his  pen. 

During  his  long  term  of  service  in  Union  Seminary  he  was 
for  sixteen  years  co-pastor  of  the  College  church,  with  the  Rev. 
Dr.  B.  M.  Smith.  During  the  same  period  he  served  Hampden 
Sydney  College  in  a  professorial  capacity  on  occasions  of  need  in 
that  institution.  In  1861,  whenever  his  duties  permitted  his  ab- 
sence from  the  seminary,  he  was  chaplain  in  the  Confederate  army, 
with  the  Virginia  troops.  In  18G3  he  was  chief  of  the  staff  of  the 
Second  Corps  under  General  Thomas  J.  Jackson.  After  the  close 
of  the  war,  during  the  period  of  utter  poverty  consequent  on  the 
great  struggle,  he  rendered  the  people  of  his  own  section  great 
service  in  taking  effective  measures  for  supplying  bread.  During 
his  years  at  the  University  of  Texas  he  taught  with  great  ability  a 
course  on  political  economy  every  year,  and  practically  founded 
and  maintained  for  all  those  years  the  Austin  Theological  School. 
Throughout  his  whole  ministerial  life  he  gave  valuable  service  to 
the  church  in  her  courts  and  on  important  committees. 

He  has  been  our  most  prolific  writer.  In  1855 he  published  the 
Memoir  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Francis  S.  Sampson;  in  1857  he  put  forth, 
as  editor,  Dr.  Sampson's  Commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews; 
in  1866  he  published  his  great  Life  of  General  Thomas  J.  Jackson; 
in  1867  his  Defense  of  Virginia  and  the  South;  in  1870  his  Treatise 
on  Sacred  Rhetoric  (3rd  ed.  1881);  in  1871,  Theology,  Dogmatic 
and  Polemic  (4th  ed.  1890);  in  1875,  Scnsualistic  Philosophy  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century  E.vamined  (new  and  enlarged  ed.  in  1887),  Prac- 
tical Philo.';ophy.  1897. 

We  understand  that  there  is  to  be  at  least  one  posthumous 
publication  in  book  form.  In  addition,  Dr.  Dabney  has  been  a 
constant  contributor  to' our  church  papers  and  reviews.  He  has 
enriched  by  his  contributions  the  publications  of  certain  philo- 
sophical and  literary  societies.  His  Discnssions.  edited  (and  issued 
from  the  press  in  1890  ff.)  by  his  life-long  and  most  intimate 
friend,  the  Rev.  Dr.  C.  R.  Vaughan,  contain  many  of  these  fugitive 
productions  in  a  more  permanent  form. 

The  last  piece  of  literary  work  he  did  was  the  preparation  of 
a  brief  sketch  of  the  life  of  his  teacher,  colleague  and  friend.  Dr. 
Sampson.     He  did  this  work  on  Monday  the  third  of  this  month, 


Rfberl  I.nc'is   Dnbnry  --[n   A/emoriam  7 

January.     In  the  evening  of  that  day  he  was  seized  witli  an  acute 
illness  and  died,  after  four  hours,  at  11  P.  M. 

Hampden  Sydney  College  conferred  the  degree  of  D.  D.  on 
iiim  ill  IS.-),'!,  and  the  degree  of  LL.  D.  in  1872.  The  General  As- 
sembly of  the  Southern  Church  made  him  its  Moderator  in  1870. 

So  far,  a  brief  and  most  imperfect  sketch  of  Dr.  Dabney's  life. 
To  give  an  adequate  account  of  his  life  it  would  he  neces.sary  to 
enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  general  current  of  theological 
thought  during  the  last  forty  years  and  portray  him  in  relation  to 
these  currents.  It  would  al.so  be  necessary  to  give  an  exposition 
of  many  contemporary  philosophical  systems  and  show  how  he 
stood  toward  those  systems.  It  would  be  no  lei;s  needful  to  refer 
to  many  material,  political  and  sociological  changes  which  have 
occurred  in  our  country  during  the  la.st  fifty  years.  For  Dr.  Dab- 
ncy,  while  a  minister  of  the  gospel,  was  also  a  citizen  of  his  com- 
monwealth, and  a  great  christian  statesman.  He  took  a  burning 
interest  in  all  that  vitally  concerned  the  welfare  of  his  country. 
He  held  profound  views  on  political  economy  and  statecraft,  and 
set  them  forth  with  tremendous  vigor.  The  lives  even  of  most 
great  preachers  pass  in  such  quiet  that  the  historian  finds  little 
to  dwell  upon.  What  he  says  of  one  day's  labor  and  achieve- 
ments may  be  said  of  almost  every  other  day.  Such  was  not  the 
life  of  Dr.  Dabney.  His  life  touched  so  many  points  in  the  com- 
mon history  of  church  and  state  and  touched  them  in  a  way  so 
unusual  that  it  is  impossible  to  give  an  adequate  sketch  in  a  few 
pages. 

Hence  wc  propose  a  much  more  possible  task  in  the  remain- 
mg  portion  of  this  paper,  viz.:  to  name  and  illustrate  briefly  some 
of  his  more  important  mental  and  moral  characteristics. 

1 .  Mental  Characteristics.  He  had  acute  and  accurate  and 
untiring  powers  of  perception ;  a  memory  which  held  the  gist  of 
all  he  had  perceived  like  a  vise;  a  superb  constructive  imagination, 
and  an  active,  subtle,  profound,  powerful  and  sagacious  intellect. 

His  powers  of  observation,  coupled  with  his  interest  in  topo- 
graphical studies,  gave  him  a  more  minute  and  correct  knowledge 
of  a  larger  portion  of  the  earth's  surface  than  any  other  man  with 
whom  it  has  ever  been  our  privilege  to  converse.  Tliis  power 
was,  we  suppose,  one  of  the  reasons  why  General  Jackson  made 


8  Robert  Lewis  Dabiiey — /;/   Mcmoriam 

Dr.  Dabney  his  chief  of  stafif.  And  it  perhaps  saved  one  important 
battle  to  the  Confederacy.  For  on  one  occasion  when  Dr.  Dabney 
had  been  ordered  off  duty  on  account  of  sickness,  he  observed  that 
one  of  the  orderlies  who  had  been  entrusted  with  an  important 
message  by  his  general  did  not  comprehend  the  order.  He  rode 
down  the  line  after  the  orderly,  ascertained  that  he  had  not  given 
the  message  correctly, repeated  it  properly  and  so  was  instrumental 
in  bringing  up  at  a  critical  moment  the  men  that  were  needed  in 
order  to  turn  the  tide  of  battle.  His  accuracy  and  strength  of 
memory  for  the  gist  of  an  event  or  a  place  and  even  for  the  more 
important  details  was  a  power  that  impressed  itself  on  all  about 
him.  His  natural  gift  was  such  that  by  a  little  cultivation  he  could 
have  displayed  a  most  luxurious  and  riotous  fancy.  He  did  not 
care,  however,  to  quicken  his  powers  of  fanciful  description,  usu- 
ally dignified  with  the  name  of  imagination.  But  the  power  of  the 
constructive  imagination,  the  power  which  the  inventor  and  the 
discoverer  must  possess,  the  power  without  which  no  man  can  be 
a  real  poet  or  a  great  literary  artist,  or  even  a  framer  of  a  great 
philosophical  or  theological  system,  that  power  he  valued,  and 
he  was  richly  endowed  with  it.  Evidences  of  it  are  seen  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent  in  every  work  he  ever  wrote  and  they 
abounded  in  his  oral  teaching.  The  activity,  profundity,  sub- 
tlety and  sagacity  of  his  intellect  is  proven,  not  only  by  his  vol- 
uminous writings,  but  by  his  whole  history. 

In  point  of  intellectual  energy  and  power  we  not  only  regard 
him  as  superior  to  every  other  man  we  have  ever  seen,  but  as 
having  had  no  equal  so  far  as  history  has  had  anything  to  say,  in 
the  whole  history  of  Christianity  in  this  country.  Thornwell  was 
a  genius:  Charles  Hodge  was  very  learned  and  possessed  a 
strong  and  massive  mind.  Archibald  Alexander  Hodge  is  sup- 
posed by  many  to  have  been  his  father's  mental  superior.  Old 
Dr.  Archibald  Alexander  has,  by  some  of  his  admirers,  been 
called  the  Immanuel  Kant  of  North  America.  But  for  sheer 
mental  might  we  suppose  that  old  Jonathan  Edwards  was  more 
nearly  Dr.  Dabney's  equal.  He  founded  a  theology.  He  made 
a  great  name.  He  won  a  numerous  following.  But  this  was  due 
in  part  to  his  peculiar  teachings — his  doctrine  of  identity,  his  doc- 
trine of  ability,  and  his  theory  of  virtue.     He  changed  too,  some- 


Robert  f.acis   Dabnry — /ii   Afcinoriam  0 

what,  the  tlicoldgical  system  whicli  he  wislied  to  dcfencl.  Dr. 
I)al)iu  V  shows  his  great  p(3wer  while  walking  in  old  ]>aths.  He 
supports  the  system  of  the  Westminster  Standards  without  resort 
to  sikIi  (loulilful  and  ultimately  insufficient,  even  if  profound 
looking,  shifts  as  those  to  which  the  great  New  Englander  re- 
sorted. He  cuts  up  Edwardsism  by  the  roots.  He  shows  that 
the  shifts  were  untrue  and  to  be  rcpudiatefl.  He  again  defends 
fearlessly  om-  standards  received  from  tlie  great  assembly  at  West- 
minster. y\nd  he  gives  new  illustrations  of  his  profundity  and 
mental  might  by  stating  objections  to  certain  doctrines  more  over- 
whelming than  had  before  been  stated;  and  by  giving  arguments 
of  greater  weight  in  behalf  of  the  truth. 

Nor  are  men  of  our  own  church  alone  in  this  judgment  as  to 
Dr.  Dabney's  abilities  as  a  thinker  on  theological  and  philo- 
sophical subjects.  We  havC  it  on  good  testimony  that  Dr.  A.  A. 
Hodge,  when  about  to  introduce  one  of  his  middle  classes  to  the 
study  of  Systematic  theology,  pronounced  the  same  judgment 
substantially  concerning  the  ability  of  Dr.  Dabney.  Our  inform- 
ant told  us  that  on  the  day  that  Dr.  Hodge  gave  his  opening 
lecture  in  the  course  on  systematic  theology  to  his  class  he 
took  up  most  of  the  hour  in  talking  about  text-books  and  other 
literature  which  might  be  read  as  collateral  during  the  course,  and 
that  when  about  to  conclude  his  remarks  concerning  the  literature 
he  spoke  as  follows:  "Gentlemen,  before  concluding  this  list  of 
theological  treatises  which  may  be  read  as  we  pursue  our  studies 
together,  I  wish  to  call  your  attention  to  one  other  work.  Tliis 
is  a  single  large  octavo  volume.  It  is  by  the  profoundest  thinker 
and  writer  on  theological  subjects,  in  my  judgment,  that  .America 
has  produced.  Remember,  I  say  the  profoundest  thinker  and 
writer.  You  may  not  find  the  style  of  his  book  agreeable  or  the 
reading  easy.  But  you  will  find  a  jirofundity  of  thought  thnt 
you  cannot  find  elsewhere.  It  is  stimulating  too,  and  I  beg  vou 
to  read  it.  The  work  I  refer  to  is  by  the  Rev.  R.  L.  Dabney  of  the 
Southern  Presbyterian  Church."  We  have  heard  from  still  an- 
other source  that  Dr.  Hodge  was  accustomed  to  say  substantially 
the  same  thing  to  all  his  classes  as  they  began  with  him  the  studv 
of  theology. 

Other  testimonies  from  abroad  might  be  given — some  from 


10  Robert  Lewis  Dabney — In  flfemoriam 

across  the  Atlantic.  But  we  know  of  no  more  competent  judge 
than  Dr.  A.  A.  Hodge. 

Young  men  who  read  this  paper,  let  us  remember  that  Dr. 
Dabney  grctv.  Of  course  all  admit  that  he  was  born  with  great 
and  noble  parts;  but  wise  old  men  in  the  church  tell  us  that,  in 
their  judgment.  Dr.  George  A.  Baxter  was  the  greater  man  of 
the  two  by  natural  endowment,  and  yet  afifirm  that  Dr.  Dabney 
developed  himself  into  a  vastly  bigger  man.  Dr.  Dabney's  mental 
history  ought  to  be  an  inspiration  to  us,  and  that  whether  we  can 
render  half  so  noble  a  service  as  he,  or  not. 

2.  Moral  Traits.  His  endowments  in  the  way  of  active  and 
practical  powers  were  of  a  noble  order;  and  as  we  knew  him 
they  had  been  sanctified  to  an  unusually  high  degree  by  divine 
grace. 

His  sensibilities  were  duly  subordinated.  He  was  remarka- 
bly free  from  base  affections.  He  loved  not  low  things.  He 
delighted  in  high  things.  He  loved  devotedly,  and  was  a  good 
hater,  as  every  good  lover  must  be.  He  loved  passionately  the 
good  and  hated  passionately  the  evil.  His  afTectiona!  nature  was 
a  great  fire;  it  drove  him  at  times  almost  furiously  against  what 
seemed  wrong,  and  in  support  of  what  seemed  right.  His  logic, 
and  all  his  mental  workings,  like  the  Apostle  Paul's,  were  often 
aflame  with  feeling.  No  man  can  understand  the  products  of  his 
mind  who  does  not  keep  this  fact  before  him. 

While  he  had  a  general  love  for  mankind,  and  a  much  warmer 
love  for  all  his  Christian  brethren,  lie  gave  a  peculiar  love  to  a 
few  friends.  Few  men  are  capable  of  an  affection  so  intense  and 
loyal.  When  he  admired  a  brother  and  trusted  him  as  thor- 
oughly honest,  open  and  sincere,  intimate  association  was  alone 
needed  to  call  forth  from  him  a  wealth  of  affection  which  no  other 
could  give  save  one  equally  great.  But  the  ruling  passion  of  his 
life  was  his  love  to  God. 

Men  who  sat  under  his  teaching  before  he  had  reached  his 
prime  have  given  expression  in  our  presence,  to  their  conviction 
that  Dr.  Dabney  was  even  then  the  mo'st  godly  man  whom  they 
had  ever  met.  His  students  in  his  old  age  at  Austin,  were  wont 
to  speak  of  him  as  St.  John.  One  proof  of  his  practical  godliness 
is  found  in  the  fact  that  he  was  a  man  to  whom  people  in  trouble 


Robert  Lewis  Dabncy — In  Memoriam  1 1 

and  need  were  wont  to  go  in  order  to  find  comfort  and  help.  \Vc 
liavc  seen  no  one  whose  life  was  more  poverned  by  principle — by 
what  he  thought  to  be  the  teaching  of  God's  Word.  He  tried  to 
regar<l  himself,  and  all  he  possessed  as  God's  property.  Accord- 
ingly, while  he  naturally  loved  soft  raiment,  and  beautiful  pictures, 
and  a  lu.xurions  home,  he  subordinated  sensuous  and  aisthctical 
tastes  to  moral  and  spiritual  considerations.  His  sense  of  stew- 
ardship was  so  high  that  he  was  at  times  subjected  to  harsh  criti- 
cisms by  those  not  similarly  governed  by  Biblical  principles.  He 
gave  himself  all  he  thought  he  needed  in  order  to  his  becoming 
the  most  efficient  servant  of  the  Lord  who  had  bought  him.  His 
religion  similarly  pervaded  his  whole  life.  He  was  dclcrmincd  to 
make  it  so.  And  no  man  had  more  vigor  of  will,  or  did  more  reso- 
lutely what  he  believed  to  be  right.  He  could  hardly  be  stopped 
in  a  course  which  he  believed  right.  He  lived  this  life  without  a 
trace  of  Phariseeism. 

Springing  out  of  the  foregoing  mental,  moral  and  religious 
traits  were  certain  other  remarkable  characteristics,  among  which 
was 

3.  A  very  marked  humility  of  mind  before  God.  and  generosity 
in  judging  his  fellozinnen. 

In  a  man  of  such  mental  power  one  might,  at  the  first  mo- 
ment, expect  an  attempt  at  daring  and  rationalistic  speculation — 
an  attempt  to  solve  the  insoluble,  or  in  event  of  failure,  to  deny 
the  inscrutable  as  to  fact.  But  no  man  of  our  acquaintance  has 
recognized  the  limitations  of  the  finite  mind  more  steadily  than 
Dr.  Dabney.  He  stands  in  this  respect  in  distinguished  contrast 
to  some  other  great  and  even  conservative  men  of  his  age.  Tlie 
venerable  Dr.  Wm.  G.  T.  Shedd,  for  example,  appears  to  many  of 
his  readers  just  as  confident  when  he  is  setting  forth  the  results  of 
his  own  philosophical  speculations  as  when  he  has  in  the  plain 
declarations  of  Scripture  the  immediate  support  of  his  teaching. 
Somewhat  of  the  same  confidence  as  to  results  reached  by  a  long 
process  of  reasoning  and  a  good  deal  of  assumption  is  found  in 
other  of  our  great  standard  writers.  If  there  is  any  of  this  in  Dr. 
Dabney's  works  it  occupies  a  relatively  small  space.  How  often 
does  the  reader  of  his  work  on  Theology  remark  the  author  deplor- 
ing "over-refinements"   and   "undue   subtlety"  on  the   part   of 


12  Robert  Lewis  Dabne} — /;/   Monoriam 

theologians.  He  does  not  like  the  distinction  between  Mediate 
and  Immediate  imputation.  He  declares  that  the  question  between 
the  Supra-lapsarianism  and  the  Sub-lapsarianism  "never  ought  to 
have  been  raised,"  that  cither  answer  is  illogical.  And  when  dis- 
cussing the  origin  of  the  human  soul,  he  will  not  commit  himself 
either  to  the  theory  of  creationism  or  to  that  of  traducianism.  He 
presents  the  arguments  for  each  with  great  force.  He  presents 
the  objections  to  each  more  strongly  than  we  have  found  them 
stated  elsewhere,  and  then  says:  "With  such  difficulties  besetting 
both  sides,  it  will  be  best  perhaps  to  leave  the  subject  as  an  abso- 
lute mystery.  What  an  opprobrium  to  the  pride  of  human 
philosophy,  that  it  should  be  unable  to  answer  the  very  first  and 
nearest  question  as  to  its  own  origin."  He  planted  himself  on 
Scripture  teaching  as  upon  a  rock.  No  man  has  shown  a  more 
devoted  allegiance  to  the  Word  of  God.  He  is  ever  going  to 
"the  Law  and  to  the  Testimony."  Where  the  Bible  asserts,  he 
asserts  with  all  positiveness.  But  in  cases  where  the  teaching  of 
the  Word  is  not  clear  and  where  human  speculation  dares  intrude, 
he  at  once  throws  out  emphatic  caveats.  Until  the  results  of 
philosophical  speculation  had  been  thoroughly  tried  he  was  dis- 
trustful. Like  a  few  of  the  very  greatest  men  he  had  a  true  sense 
of  the  littleness  in  grasp  and  power  of  the  greatest  finite  intel- 
ligence in  the  presence  of  the  being  and  mystery  of  an  infinite 
God  and  his  ways. 

Coupled  with  this  humility  before  God  was  an  unwonted 
generosity  in  judging  of  the  characters  of  his  fellowmen.  Severe 
in  his  condemnation  of  evil  conduct  and  vicious  principles,  he 
had  a  profound  regard  for  God's  handiwork  wherever  seen.  He 
seemed  free — entirely  free,  from  envy.  He  knew  what  slander 
was  and  despised  it.  Except  for  the  purpose  of  subserving  the 
interest  of  truth  he  rarely  related  anything  of  any  man  that  was 
discreditable  to  that  man.  And  we  doubt  whether  any  minister 
of  our  Church  showed  day  by  day  more  of  genuine  and  considerate 
regard  for  his  brethren  in  the  ministry.  We  know  that  he  never 
spoke  save  in  kind  terms  of  many  who  criticized  him  roughly. 
We  knew  him  very  intimately  as  a  student  knows  an  indulgent 
master  at  whose  table  he  sits;  and  we  know  whereof  we  have 
spoken.     We  know  that  few  men  in  the  church  have  habitually 


Robert  Lewis   l^abney     In   Memoriavi  l.'J 

s])okcii  more  gciu'ioiisly  of  liis  Ijrcthrcn  tliaii  lie  did.  It  used 
to  siir])risc  us  while  it  drew  us  to  the  blind  okl  man,  showing  as  it 
did  his  forbearing  moral  greatness. 

And  he  thought  so  generously  of  his  friends  and  favorite 
pu])ils  that  they  were  sometimes  in  ix)sitive  danger  therefrom. 
He  projeeted  his  own  great  powers  upon  them  and  sometimes 
represented  them  as  quite  ditiferent  and  much  greater  than  thev 
really  were. 

4.  Another  trait  of  Dr.  Dabney,  as  we  knew  him.  was  his  per- 
petual youth — his  young  interest  in  everything  going  on  in  the 
world.  Some  old  men,  even  old  men  of  jxjwer  and  talents, 
seem  to  lose  interest  in  movements  contemporary  to  their  old 
age.  They  were  once  interested  in  all  the  new  isms,  movements 
in  church  or  state,  for  good  or  evil,  but  it  is  no  longer  so.  They 
are  willing  for  young  men  to  study  the  new  departures;  but  they 
did  their  studying  of  the  like  thirty  years  ago.  Dr.  Dabney's 
interest  in  the  things  about  him  and  in  events  in  the  great  world 
at  large  never  seemed  to  wane.  He  remained  a  learner  as  long 
as  he  lived.  He  sought  new  information  with  avidity.  No  wide 
awake  young  man  distanced  him  in  this.  He  wished  to  know 
about  every  movement  which  was  likely  to  effect  for  weal  or  woe 
the  fortunes  of  any  considerable  number  of  people.  Tliink  of 
Dr.  Dabney  when  seventy  years  old  and  stone  blind  calling  on  an 
Apostle  of  the  Christian  Science  who  chanced  to  be  creating  a 
great  commotion  among  a  certain  class  in  Austin!  Of  course  he 
found  nothing  to  approve  in  that  mixture  of  allegorizing  mysti- 
cism, rationalistic  pantheism  and  infidelity.  But  he  was  enabled 
the  better  to  do  some  quiet  polemic  work  in  a  quarter  where  it 
was  needed.  Think  of  his  sending  a  young  friend  not  only  to 
meetings  of  Salvation  Army  people,  but  to  the  performances  of  a 
peripatetic  phrenologist  that  he  might  get  a  more  trustworthy 
report  than  he  could  secure  through  other  means.  Other  old 
men  may  say:  "Oh  it  is  well  enough  for  you  young  men  to  be 
intorested  in  such  movements.  You  have  your  battles  to  fight 
but  I  have  fought  mine.  I  care  nothing  about  these."  Dr.  Dab- 
ney never  felt  that  way.  He  kept  young  to  the  last.  He  was, 
on  this  account,  exceedingly  attractive  to   young  men.     They 


14  Robert  Lewis  Dalmey — hi   Memoriam 

found  him  ever  putting  himself  on  the  same  plane  witli  them — 
ready  to  learn  what  interested  them  with  all  zest. 

\\'hile  he  was  so  interested  in  every  new  movement,  he  by  no 
means  regarded  all  the  new-  as  good.  This  brings  us  to  the  last 
trait  of  which  we  shall  speak  in  this  paper. 

5.  He  was  conservative  in  theology,  philosophy  and  states- 
manship. He  was  always  and  everywhere  applying  the  inspired 
precept,  "Prove  all  things.  Hold  fast  that  which  is  good."  He 
was  consequently  at  war  with  much  in  his  age — with  the  atheistic 
and  infidel  theories  of  physical  science  which  have  so  largely  pre- 
vailed, with  the  various  forms  of  evolution,  anti-Biblical  in  their 
essence,  with  false  psychologies  and  false  philosophies,  whether 
pantheistic  or  materialistic,  with  jacobinism,  and  "mobocracy"  in 
politics,  with  Pelagianism  in  every  form  and  Unitarianism  in 
every  shade,  in  theology.  He  knew  that  man  was  never  evolved 
from  an  ape,  that  there  is  a  radical,  fundamental  and  essential  dif- 
ference between  a  man's  consciousness  when  sufifering  for  sin  and 
a  dog's  when  chastised  by  his  master  for  a  fault  in  his  behavior. 
He  knew  that  God  created  the  world  ex  nihilo;  for  God  has  told 
us  so  in  His  Word.  He  knew  that  the  several  forms  of  the  sensu- 
alistic  psychology  were  lies,  at  least  in  considerable  part;  that  Pan- 
theism degrades  and  dishonors  God,  robs  man  of  his  personality 
and  is  utterly  false ;  that  materialism,  Herbert  Spencerism,  and 
agnosticism  are  equally  false.  He  knew  that  the  Jacobinical  as- 
sumption "All  men  are  of  right  free  and  equal"  never  has  been 
true,  never  will  be  true,  and  never  can  be  true  in  the  sense  of 
its  assertors,  because  God  has  not  made  men  that  way.  Though 
Calvinism  pure  and  simple  has  been  on  the  wane  in  his  day,  he 
knew  that  Augustinianism  once  waned,  died  and  was  buried  for  a 
thousand  years,  but  was  resurrected  at  the  Reformation,  because 
it  was  largely  God's  truth.  He  expected  confidently  in  God's  own 
time  the  revindication  of  Calvinism.  In  short,  satisfied  as  to  the 
correctness  of  the  Westminster  System  of  doctrinal  teaching,  and 
satisfied  as  to  the  substantial  truth  of  the  common  sense  philoso- 
phy of  the  Scotch  School,  he  has  given  the  ablest,  though  not 
the  simplest  exposition  and  defence  of  this  theology,  and  has  en- 
larged, deepened  and  ennobled  the  Scottish  philosophy,  showing 


Robert  I.eivis   Dabnry — In   Manoriam  15 

clearly  that  it  is  the  (jjiilosophy  of  coniinon  sense — the  only  phi- 
l()so])hy  worthy  of  aeeeiHance — and  tlie  pliilosoi)hy  of  the  bible  as 
\v(  II.  lie  has  never  been  ashamed  cither  of  this  philosophy  or  of 
the  VVeslniinstcr  Tlieology.  He  has  boldly  and  confidently  main- 
tained both,  and  has  opposed  evorytliing  in  current  history  in 
opposition  thereto. 

Dr.  Dabney  has  received  much  criticism  as  ultra-conserva- 
tive. Perhaps  in  some  minor  matters  he  was  too  antagonistic  to 
change;  but  we  confidently  await  the  verdict  of  history  on  his 
conservatism.  We  do  not  believe  that  he  was  too  conservative  in 
most  matters  and  we  feel  sure  that  had  he  been  less  conser- 
vative he  would  not  have  served  the  Church  in  his  generation  so 
well.  The  Church  needed  guidance  by  a  man  who  could  and 
would  look  before  he  leaped — before  he  abandoned  the  tried  old 
for  the  untried  new.  Our  age  is  so  impressed  with  its  own  great- 
ness ;  it  is  so  intoxicated  by  its  brilliant  achievements  in  amassing 
material  wealth  and  making  physical  discoveries,  that  it  esteems 
itself  too  highly.  It  tends  to  despise  all  that  it  has  not  itself  dis- 
covered. It  is  too  ready  to  receive  the  new  because  it  is  new  and 
to  throw  away  the  old  because  it  is  old.  Every  age  runs  toward 
godlessness.  Much  of  the  new  in  our  age  is  godless.  Hence,  also, 
we  are  in  danger  of  repudiating  the  best  of  our  inheritance  from 
the  past.  Hence,  also,  our  need  of  some  man  with  penetration 
and  insight  to  discern  between  good  and  evil  and  with  heroic 
boldness  to  warn  us  against  an  evil  course,  and  with  the  thunder- 
bolt of  Thor  to  demolish  the  ramparts  of  error. 

Dr.  Dabney  was  a  great  man.  We  cannot  tell  just  how  great 
yet.  One  cannot  see  how  great  Mt.  Blanc  is  wliile  standing  at 
its  foot.  One  hundred  years  from  now  men  will  be  able  to  see 
him  better. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  some  who  have  not  seen  Dr.  Dab- 
ney to  be  told  that  he  was  in  personal  appearance  commanding. 
He  was  about  six  feet  in  height, in  his  youth  slender, but  in  middle 
age  of  excellent  proportions.  He  had  a  woble  brow,  well  shaped 
and  capacious,  piercing  black  eyes  set  in  deep  sockets,  a  large  well 
formed  nose,  thin  lips,  mouth  and  lower  face  expressive  of  great 
firmness;  in  his  old  days  a  patriarchal  beard  and  abundant  hair, 
both  very  white — an  imperial  looking  man,  a  man  apparently 


16  Robert  Lewis  Dabney — In  Afi»ioria»i 

capable  of  great  things.  His  movements  were  always  quick,  ner- 
vous, forceful,  though  not  graceful.  His  manner  and  bearing 
were  in  no  wise  unworthy  of  his  great  character. 

He  leaves  behind  him  his  beloved  and  most  devoted  wife  and 
three  sons,  viz.:     Charles  William  Dabney,  President  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Tennessee;  Samuel  Brown  Dabney,  attorney  of  Victoria, 
Texas,  and  Lewis  Merewether  Dabney,  attorney  of  Dallas,  Texas. 
Hampden  Sydney,  Va.,  January  18,  1898. 


ROBEKT    I.KWIS    DABNEY, 
Hampden  Sidney.  Va.,  1ST2  or  '7:). 


THE  MAN  AND  SCHOLAR. 

IIY    KKV.     DK.    JAMKS    H.    SlIICAKHK. 

I  111   llio    Union   Seminary   Magazine,   Vol.    IX,    No.    I,    March-April 
IHU8,  pajji;  2!)1.] 

In  prcparinj,'  a  tribulc  to  my  lamciitL-d  teacher  and  life-long 
friend  I  fed  as  unequal  to  the  ta.sk,  as  if  I  should  take  a  measur- 
mg  rod  in  my  hand  and  walk  about  sonic  great  nioiuitain  which 
from  its  base  to  its  snow  capped  summit  yields  the  flora  of  all  the 
zones  and  refreshes  the  surrounding  valleys  with  their  cooling 
streams  of  pure  and  limpid  water  that  flow  from  its  peaks  and 
grottoes.  Its  beauty  and  sublimity  are  only  enhanced  by  the  rug- 
ged features  tliat  are  always  found  in  great  mountains.  Tlie  very 
cold  of  its  lofty  head  is  necessary  to  the  condensation  of  its  hood 
of  clouds  into  snow  and  ice  of  perfect  purity  to  be  thawed  in  turn 
by  its  internal  warmth,  thus  furnishing  verdure  and  beauty  along 
its  sides  and  base;  and  then,  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  its  streams, 
mingling  with  others  from  similar  sources,  spread  wider  blessings 
till  they  fall  away  into  the  sea.  Such  were  the  mountains  of  Leb- 
anon to  Coelesyria,  and  to  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  and  indeed 
to  all  Palestine.  Such  are  the  great  men  of  the  church  in  all  ages. 
In  towering  above  us  all  they  bless  us  only  the  more.  From 
them  we  learn  that  the  mountains  and  the  little  hills  and  the  val- 
leys have  the  same  foundations  in  righteousness,  and  all  draw 
their  refreshing  from  the  same  high  heavens. 

I.  His  powers  of  acquisition  were  of  the  highest  order.  Ac- 
cording to  his  own  analysis  of  these  powers,  wonder,  and  curi- 
osity are  native  and  conspire  to  the  active  pursuit  of  truth. 
Whenever  he  met  a  stranger  or  any  one  from  new  or  distant  locali- 
ties, his  wonder  and  interest  were  evident,  and  his  eager  ques- 
tions, without  suspicion  of  a  mere  idle  curiosity,  about  soil,  cli- 
mate, religious,  civil  or  social  conditions,  or  other  possible  things, 
brought  him  a  marvelous  fund  of  information  to  be  some  day 
utilized.  He  thought  himself  slow  in  reaching  conclusions,  but 
his  slowness  was  in  making  sure  that  he  had  exhausted  all  the 
facts. 


18  Robert  Lewis  Dabney — hi  Memoriam 

II.  His  memory  was  equal  to  his  curiosity.  His  powers  of 
retention  to  the  last  were  not  surprising,  but  his  memory  was 
of  the  philosophic  order.  He  gathered  facts  for  the  establish- 
ment and  elucidation  of  principles  and  they  were  retained  for  ready 
use  as  part  of  his  mental  furnishing  whenever  he  could  teach 
others.  Facts  were  worth  nothing  to  him  except  as  they  em- 
bodied principles  by  which  they  became  self-luminous  and  of  such 
absorbing  interest  as  never  to  be  forgotten. 

III.  His  versatility  was  as  wide  as  his  experience.  This  can 
be  said  of  few  men.  We  all  touch  nature,  society,  the  state,  and  ail 
the  world  about  us  at  multitudinous  points,  but  how  little  do  we 
see.  Many  excel  along  one  or  more  lines,  constrained  by  personal 
taste  and  habit,  or  by  the  exegencies  of  professional  needs.  His 
eyes  seemed  to  be  always  open,  and  nothing  seemed  to  escape  his 
observation.  No  problem  of  life  failed  to  interest  him  or  to  enlist 
his  most  earnest  scrutiny.  This  is  seen  in  the  variety  of  his  writ- 
ten productions,  but  was  best  realized  by  those  who  enjoyed  his 
daily  conversation  or  watched  his  personal  habits.  Some  men 
appear  versatile  by  flitting  from  theme  to  theme  only  to  make  their 
superficiality  more  apparent,  but  his  studies  of  soils  and  grasses 
detracted  nothing  from  his  study  of  man,  nor  from  tlie  study  of 
the  God  who  made  men,  soils  and  grasses.  His  was  a  mind  to 
grasp  all  truth  and  to  unify  it  all,  subject  only  to  such  limitations 
as  are  necessary  to  finite  humanity. 

IV.  He  combined  great  strength  and  power  with  the  keenest 
and  most  delicate  analysis.  It  is  not  often  that  the  same  hand  can 
wield  the  sledge  hammer  and  handle  the  scalpel  and  the  micro- 
scope. He  staked  everything  upon  careful  analysis  and  accurate 
definition.  He  found  the  weak  spot  in  a  system  of  errors,  and 
hurled  his  missile  with  the  same  precision  and  power  as  when 
David  overthrew  Goliath,  and  then  with  his  relentless  argumen- 
titm  ad  hoinincjn  he  decapitated  error  with  its  own  sword,  and 
exposed  the  bleeding  trophy  so  relentlessly  that  some  people 
thought  him  cruel,  and  most  of  all  the  errorist. 

V.  As  a  teacher,  in  the  pulpit  and  in  the  class  room,  he  was 
a  dogmatist.  So  ought  every  teacher  to  be.  Away  with  that 
namby  pamby  courtesy  and  politeness  that  smirks  and  bows  and 
extends  its  mantle  of  charity  to  falsehood  and  sin,  and  concedes  to 
heresy  equal  rights  and  standing  with  truth  under  the  deceitful 


Robert  I.cich   Pabncy  —In    Mcmoriam  I'.l 

plea  of  honest  conviction  and  the  rii,'lit  of  private  jiulf^mcnt.  He 
always  treated  the  errorist  courteously  and  never  allowed  his  de- 
nunciation of  the  false  in  theory  or  practice  to  degenerate  into 
personalities.  And  yet  his  denunciations  often  remind  us  of  Him 
who  took  a  scourge  of  small  cords  and  drove  out  of  the  temple 
those  who  profaned  it,  crying.  "The  zeal  of  Thy  house  hath  eaten 
me  up;"  or  they  remind  us  of  John  who  denounced  heresy  and 
falsehood  like  a  very  Uoancrges,  as  he  was. 

W.  Those  who  sat  at  his  feet  or  shared  in  his  sweet  coun- 
sels know  also  that  he  was  like  John  on  the  lovely  side  of  his 
character,  and  that  he  strove  to  be  like  his  Master,  who  was  "meek 
and  lowly  in  heart."  As  a  teacher  "he  had  compassion  on  the  ig- 
norant" anil  if  any  stumbled  or  went  astray  he  restored  such  a  one 
in  the  "spirit  of  meekness."  With  a  temper  naturally  aggressive, 
hi;  modesty  and  humility  prevented  his  being  a  propagandist. 
With  a  consciousness  of  strong  reasoning  powers  his  chikllrke 
faith  in  God's  word  saved  him  from  every  shade  of  rationalism.  It 
is  easy  to  speak  of  the  Bible  as  the  Universal  Book,  touching 
and  inspiring  human  life  and  action  everywhere,  giving  tone  and 
coloral  every  point,  but  I  will  not  be  considered  extravagant  when 
T  say  that  few  men  have  so  realized  this  as  Robert  L.  Dabney. 
He  brought  everything  to  this  Divine  touch-stone,  and  was 
never  so  happy  as  when  all  his  thiid<ing  was  consciously  shaped 
by  God's  word. 

Vn.  Robert  L.  Dabney  as  a  friend.  Here  the  heart  swells 
at  the  memory  of  such  a  friend  and  then  breaks  into  weeping  at 
the  loss.  Dabney  and  Sampson  loved  each  other  like  David  and 
Jonathan.  He  poured  out  his  great  heart  of  love  in  the  memo- 
rial he  wrote  of  his  friend.  You  cannot  read  it  without  measur- 
ing the  depth  and  intensity  of  his  love.  So  it  was  in  all  his  friend- 
ships. He  loved  with  all  his  heart.  He  did  nothing  by  halves. 
It  is  not  always  understood  that  true  love,  whether  it  be'  of  wife, 
or  child,  or  friend,  or  God,  is  only  measured  by  the  heart's  ca- 
pacity. Loving  one  with  all  the  heart  lessens  not  the  measure 
for  the  others.  And  the  heart's  capacity  for  love  is  only  enlarged 
by  enlarging  the  circle  of  its  bestowment.  How  wide  was  his 
circle  of  friends  and  how  large  a  heart  he  gave!  He  is  gone  to 
see  the  face  of  that  Friend  on  whose  arm  he  leaned  so  long,  and 
''whom  having  not  seen,  he  loved." 


THE  CHRISTIAN  WARRIOR. 

BY    REV.    DR.    BENJAMIN    M.    PALMER. 
[In  Ihe  Southern  Presbyterian  of  January  20,  1898.] 

The  recent  death  of  Dr.  Dabney  distils  the  tear  of  sorrow 
from  many  a  suffering  heart.  He  was  truly  a  Prince  in  our  Israel, 
a  pillar  of  strength  in  the  House  of  our  God.  How  we  shall  miss 
him,  who  leaned  upon  him  for  defence  in  the  great  battle  for  truth 
in  this  sinful  world !  He  was  mentally  and  morally  constituted  a 
great  Polemic;  with  a  massive  intellect  capable  of  searching  into 
the  foundations  of  truth,  and  with  an  intellectual  as  well  as  moral 
indignation  against  every  form  of  falsehood — we  find  in  these 
natural  attributes  the  secret  of  his  strong  convictions  and  the  fear- 
less utterance  of  them  which  distinguished  him  through  life.  A 
great  writer  of  our  own  time  has  said  that  "love  of  truth  is  hon- 
esty of  reason,  as  love  of  virtue  is  honesty  of  heart."  It  was  this 
twofold  honesty  that  made  Dr.  Dabney  the  Christian  warrior  that 
he  was.  Loving  truth  for  herself,  he  sought  her  as  one  might 
seek  to  win  his  bride ;  and  so  his  convictions  went  down  into  the 
substance  of  his  whole  being.  His  holy  reverence  for  truth 
wrought  in  him  a  holy  intolerance  of  error ;  and  he  fought  for  the 
one,  and  against  the  other,  with  a  passionate  earnestness  whicii 
many  mistook  for  bitterness  of  spirit. 

Yet  with  these  sturdy  qualities  were  united  the  gentler  traits 
which,  oftener  than  is  generally  supposed,  are  blended  in  the  char- 
acter of  those  who  are  truly  great.  All  who  were  admitted  into  the 
repose  of  Dr.  Dabney's  inner  life  recognized  those  amiable  virtues 
which  endeared  him  to  his  pupils  and  to  his  friends  of  every  de- 
gree. The  sweet  simplicity  of  his  character,  and  the  genuine 
modesty  which  veiled  while  it  did  not  conceal  his  greatness,  made 
it  easy  for  others  to  rejoice  in  his  pre-eminence  without  the  in- 
fusion of  jealousy.  It  is  only  the  loftier  natures,  which  look  upon 
their  own  achievements  as  being  such,  that  others  might  have 
wrought  as  well. 

The  departure  of  this  loved  and  honored  brother  falls  upon 
the  ear  of  the  writer  of  these  lines,  like  a  chime  from  the  upper 


Robfrl  Lewis   Dnbney—hi   Mcvtoriam  21 

world  to  vvliicli  In-  lias  f^onc.  Whilst  Dabncy  sleeps  with  the 
honored  dead  in  i!k'  rural  grave-yard  in  I'rincc  Edward,  those 
who  stood  hy  his  side,  fiRhtinjj  for  the  truth  of  God  in  his  genera- 
tion, are  standing  at  the  edge  of  their  own  graves  opening  at 
tin  ir  feet.  Together  with  their  departed  brother  they  will  awake 
ill  llie  trinin|)hant  resurrection  morn.  Will  those  who  take  their 
])lace  be  faithful  to  the  trust,  and  hold  the  truth  for  CJod  in 
this  ago  of  empiricism,  in  which  human  devices  arc  substituted 
for  the  power  of  Divine  truth, and  artificial combinationsusurpthc 
functions  of  the  Church  of  God?  The  generation  to  which  Dab- 
ney  belonged  is  passing  away  ;  may  God  bring  stronger  and  wiser 
men  to  the  front,  who  shall  be  equal  to  the  heavier  responsibilities 
devolved  upon  them! 


FUNERAL  OF  DR.  ROBERT  LEWIS  DABNEY. 

[From  the  Central  Presbyterian  of  January  12,  1898.] 

The  remains  of  this  honored  servant  of  God  were  brought 
from  Victoria,  Te.xas,  to  Virginia,  arriving  at  Hampden  Sydney 
on  the  morning  of  Friday,  January  7th,  and  were  placed  before 
the  pulpit  in  the  College  church.  The  three  sons  of  Dr.  Dab- 
ney,  Dr.  Charles  W.  Dabney,  of  Knoxville,  Tenn. ;  Lewis  M.  Dab- 
ney.  Esq.,  of  Dallas,  and  Samuel  B.  Dabney,  Esq.,  of  Victoria, 
Texas,  brought  the  body  of  their  father  to  its  resting  place.  A 
delegation  of  students  of  Union  Theological  Seminary,  met  them 
at  Farmville,  and  escorted  them  to  "the  Hill,"  and  remained  as  a 
guard  of  honor  in  the  church  until  the  burial. 

Among  those  present,  with  his  sons,  were  the  Rev.  Dr.  C.  R. 
Vaughan,  of  Roanoke,  who  occupied  the  chair  of  Theology  for 
s-everal  years,  and  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  C.  Johnson,  who  was  associ- 
ated with  Dr.  Dabney  in  the  Theological  school  at  Austin,  Texas. 

The  pall  bearers  were:  Prof.  Walter  Blair,  Dr.  James  P. 
Sinith,  Dr.  Richard  Mcllwaine,  Dr.  Walter  W.  Moore,  Major 
-Andrew  Venable,  Dr.  Thomas  R.  English,  Col.  J.  P.  Fitzgerald, 
Prof.  Walter  L.  Lingle,  Mr.  Thomas  Dickin.'^on. 

The  funeral  service  was  in  the  College  church  at  3  P.  M.,  Fri- 
day. A  procession  of  the  professors  and  students  of  Union  Theo- 
logical Seminary  and  of  Hampden  Sydney,  came  with  solemn 
tread  and  occupied  a  large  portion  of  the  church,  and  then  the 
church  was  filled  with  the  congregation.  Dr.  James  Murray,  the 
pastor,  presided.  Dr.  G.  B.  Strickler  announced  the  hynm — 

"Rock  of  ages,  cleft  for  me!" 
and  read  a  selection  of  appropriate  Scriptures.     Prayer  was  oflfcred 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  C.  Hersman.     Dr.  Strickler,  a  pupil  and 
a  successor  of  Dr.  Dabney's  in  the  Seminary  chair  of  Theology, 
made  a  brief  address. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  H.  M.  White,  of  Winchester,  Va.,  a  pupil  of  Dr. 
Dabney's  and  for  twenty-three  years  a  member  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees,  followed  Dr.  Strickler. 

Between  Dr.  Dabney  and  the  Rev.  Dr.  William  S.  White,  the 
father  of  Dr.  White,  a  peculiarly  strong  friendship  had  existed. 
Hence,  in  part,  the  tie  between  Dr.  Dabney  and  our  Dr.  White 


Robcil  l.nt'ia   Dnimey—ln   Afemoriam  23 

was  one  of  inheritance.  After  allusions  to  their  family  friendship, 
Dr.  White  spoke  of  Dr.  l^abney's  p;enerosity  in  dealin}^  witli  Iiis 
fellownien.  In  particular  he  emphasized  the  fact  that  though  a 
controversialist  all  his  life,  Dr.  Dabncy  never  indulged  in  person- 
alities, and  never  Knowingly  offended  either  a  colleague  or  a 
brother  minister  during  the  whole  of  his  long  life. 

It  was  remarkable  that  with  the  strength  of  his  convictions 
and  tlie  vigor  of  his  expression  of  them,  he  never  provoked  hos- 
tility. There  was  always  an  honesty  and  fearlessness  that  excited 
the  admiration  of  those  whom  he  opposed.  He  never  wounded 
the  feelings  of  any  man  in  debate. 

All  trusted  and  loved  him,  and  found  him  a  friend  in  any  time 
of  trouble.  Dr.  White  said  he  could  not  refrain  from  an  expres- 
sion of  the  sore  personal  bereavement  he  had  in  the  loss  of  Dr. 
Dabney. 

He  dwelt  eloquently  on  the  Christian  and  the  gentlemanlv 
aspect  of  Dr.  Dabney's  life. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Moses  D.  Ploge.  who  was  a  class-mate  of  Dr. 
Dabney's  in  Hampden  Sydney  College,  and  his  life-long  friend, 
made  the  closing  address.  He  said  he  came  to  this  funeral  as  a 
mourner.  We  might  lay  all  the  flowers  that  grow  on  the  lid  of  this 
casket,  and  it  would  not  express  our  love  and  esteem  for  him  who 
lay  beneath.  Strange  and  sad  were  the  associations  that  came  to 
memory.  He  had  been  present  at  the  inauguration  of  Dr.  Dabney 
in  the  Seminary,  and  now  he  was  present  at  another  inauguration 
among  the  great  and  honored  dead. 

Dr.  Hoge  said  that  Dr.  Dabney  was  his  college  classmate,  and 
together  they  had  walked  in  unbroken  fellowship  all  these  years. 
Such  friendships  shall  yet  spring  up  and  bloom  in  the  paradise  of 
God,  when  we  behold  our  Saviour's  face  in  righteousness  and  we 
shall  be  satisfied  in  His  likeness.     The  hymn — 

'■.\=leep  in  Je.siis.  blessed  sleep." 
was  sung,  and  the  funeral  procession  wended  its  wav  to  the  ceme- 
tery of  Union  Theological  Seminary.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Murrav  read 
the  committal  service,  and  oflfered  prayer,  and  Dr.  Hoge  pro- 
noimced  the  benediction  at  the  grave.  So  we  laid  to  rest  the  body 
of  Robert  L.  Dabney,  the  ninth  Professor  of  Union  Seminary  in- 
terred in  that  sacred  spot. 


OUR  LOSS. 

BY  REV.  DR.  G.  B.  STRICKI.KR. 
(Introductory  Address  at  the  Funeral.) 
"A  Prince  and  a  great  man  has  fallen  in  Lsiael."  On  such 
occasions  it  is  proper  to  take  accoinit  of  our  loss,  that  we  may 
rightly  estimate  what  the  Lord  gave  and  what  the  Lord  has  taken 
awa\'.  That  our  departed  friend  and  brother  was,  indeed,  a 
Prince  and  a  great  man  in  Israel — made  so  by  God's  gifts  of  nature 
and  grace — all  would  agree.  That  he  was  a  great  teacher,  scores 
and  hundreds  of  our  ministers  who  have  enjoyed  the  privilege  of 
his  instruction,  have  always  cordially  testified.  That  he  was  a 
great  theologian,  his  numerous  works,  left  as  an  invaluable  herit- 
age to  the  Church,  make  abundantly  evident.  That  he  was  a  great 
philosopher,  his  frequent  and  important  contributions  to  the  philo- 
sophical discussions  of  the  last  thirty  years  in  our  country,  clearly 
demonstrate.  That  he  was  a  great  preacher  many  present  can  bear 
v.'ilness  from  their  own  delightful  experience,  as  for  years  they  sat 
under  his  pulpit  ministrations.  That  as  the  result  of  thirty  years' 
teaching  in  the  seminary  and  of  the  contributions  he  has  made  to 
our  religious  and  ethical  and  theological  literature,  he  has  left  a 
deeper  impression  for  good  on  our  Southern  ministry  and  South- 
ern Church  than  any  other  man  who  has  ever  been  connected 
with  our  denomination,  few,  I  suppose,  would  question.  That  he 
was  a  great  man  in  the  excellence  of  his  character,  in  conscien- 
tiousness, in  integrity,  in  courage,  in  his  supreme  devotion  to 
truth  and  to  duty,  and  in  zeal  for  the  Church  and  for  God,  none 
can  doubt.  That  he  was  one  of  the  most  valuable  gifts  God  has 
ever  made  to  our  Church  and  our  country  all  would  admit. 
While,  therefore,  we  to-day  mourn  over  our  loss  (for  God  would 
not  have  us  so  lightly  esteem  so  great  a  gift  as  not  to  be  pro- 
foi.ndly  affected  when  it  is  withdrawn),  we  should  mingle  with  our 
lamentations  the  most  sincere  thanksgiving  to  God  that  He  ever 
nifde  us  so  great  a  gift ;  that  He  preserved  it  to  us  so  long,  and 
that  now  our  brother,  after  faithfully  serving  his  generation  until 
vital   forces  failed   under  the   growing  infirmities  of  advancing 


Robert  /.avis   Pahncy — /;/   Mcnioriaiii  25 

years,  lias  Rciitly  fallen  on  slccj),  and  been  received  to  his  rewan), 
and  iliat  those  eyes, so  long  closed  to  tiie  beauties  of  this  world,  and 
ti)  the  faces  and  forms  of  earthly  love  and  friendship,  have  been 
o])(.ncd  to  the  glories  of  the  Heavenly  Kingdom,  and  to  behold 
the  loved  ones  gone  before  and  the  general  assembly  and  church 
of  the  firstborn,  and  to  see  the  King  in  1  lis  beauty.  Let  us,  then, 
be  jirofoundly  grateful  while  we  arc  at  the  same  time  tenderly  sor- 
rowful. 

i'>n(  i(  is  not  my  i)urpose  even  to  attempt  to  give  you  an 
adc(|uate  ciincei)tii>n  of  I  )r.  Dabncy's  life  and  character.  I  leave 
that  for  the  more  competent  brethren  who  will  presently  address 
you.  I  only  wished,  in  introducing  this  part  of  the  service,  to  avail 
myself  of  the  privilege  and  opportunity  of  laying  a  little  flower 
upon  the  bier  of  him  to  whom  I  am  more  indebted  than  to  any 
other  man,  living  or  dead. 


REGNANT  MEN. 

BY    REV.    DR.    MOSES    D.    HOGE. 
(Address  at  the  Funeral.) 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  attempt  any  portraiture  of  Dr.  Dab- 
ney,  or  even  an  outline  of  the  work  he  had  luidertaken  and  ac- 
complished in  the  world,  further  than  to  remark  that  a  man  was 
ordinarily  regarded  as  having  fulfilled  the  great  end  of  life  when 
he  had  been  successful  in  any  one  department  of  useful  labor,  but 
that  it  had  been  the  privilege  of  tlie  man  whose  loss  we  mourn  to- 
day to  be  distinguished,  first  as  an  able  and  impressive  expounder 
of  the  Word  in  the  pulpit;  second,  as  one  of  the  strongest  of  writ- 
ers on  philosophic,  secular,  and  theological  themes ;  and,  third,  as 
one  of  the  most  successful  of  teachers  in  a  seminary  devoted  to 
the  training  of  young  men  for  the  Gospel  ministry ;  that  it  was  his 
rare  lot  not  only  to  win  distinction  in  each  but  to  combine  and 
nobly  employ  all  three  of  these  great  instrumentalities  for  wide 
and  permanent  usefulness. 

The  loss  of  such  a  man  makes  a  great  void  in  the  world,  and 
all  who  appreciated  his  worth  bemoan  the  bereavement  and  say, 
"How  is  the  strong  staff  broken  and  the  beautiful  rod." 

The  Bible  contains  a  record  of  the  regnant  men  of  the  race, 
the  kingly  men  of  the  world,  not  because  of  hereditary  rank  and 
power,  but  because  of  commanding  influence  through  services 
rendered  by  which  the  intellectual  and  moral  progress  of  man- 
kind has  been  advanced. 

But  outside  of  that  inspired  register,  and  continually  adding 
to  its  length  and  numbers,  are  the  men  of  distinguished  in- 
fluence, who  in  the  providence  of  God  are  raised  up  from  age  to 
age.  Some  are  endowed  with  such  genius,  and  their  natural  ca- 
pacities have  been  so  strengthened  and  illumined  by  vast  and 
varied  learning,  that  they  are  compelled  to  occupy  conspicuous 
positions.  Their  own  modesty  might  induce  them  to  seek  private 
stations,  but  those  who  appreciate  their  worth  and  power  will  not 
consent,  and  insist  that  they  shall  not  be  allowed  to  abandon  the 
high  positions  to  which  they  have  been  elevated. 


Robert  Lewis   Dahncy — In   Mcmoriam  27 

vSucI)  men  an-  the  ackno\vlt'clf,a-d  leaders  in  the  State,  tlicy 
are  the  lifjlils  and  landmarks  in  the  Church,  they  arc  the  grand 
pillars  in  the  tenijile  which  C.od  is  rearing  in  the  world  to  the 
glory  of  His  grace.  Among  the  gifts  of  Clod  are  the  gifts  of  such 
nun  to  the  Church  and  to  the  world.  For  they  are  the  instru- 
nicnts  l)y  which  society  is  moulded,  and  the  moral  and  spiritual 
influence  of  mankind  strengthened  and  advanced  from  age  to 
age.  When  such  men  are  snatched  away  we  attempt  to  console 
ourselves  by  saying :  'The  workmen  die,  but  the  work  goes  on.' 
It  docs  go  on  in  the  sense  that  God  cannot  be  thwarted  in  His 
purposes;  that  He  is  never  at  a  loss  for  instruments  to  carry 
them  on  to  completion.  Moses  and  Aaron  may  drop  out  of  the 
ranks  on  that  magnificent  march  of  the  tribes  to  the  Land  of 
Promise,  but  Joshua  is  there  at  the  river  to  conduct  them  on  and 
to  establish  them  in  their  inheritance.  Then  Samuel  comes  to  lay 
the  foimdation  of  justice  and  order;  then  David,  to  give  them  an 
inspired  liturgy  and  to  frame  a  wise  constitution  of  religious  wor- 
ship. One  by  one  the  lights  in  the  golden  candlestick  are  extin- 
guished, but  the  temple  still  glows  with  the  radiance  of  the  glory 
of  the  Lord.  The  Church  still  lifts  up  its  voice,  though  tremulous 
and  full  of  tears,  and  cries,  'Lord,  Thou  hast  been  our  dwelling- 
place  in  all  generations,'  and  is  measurably  comforted.  But  there 
is  another  sense  in  which  it  is  true  that  when  the  workman  dies 
the  work  does  not  go  on  as  successfully  and  steadily  as  before.  In- 
deed, the  death  of  a  single  man  often  arrests  that  progress  tem- 
porarily and  cripples,  though  it  does  not  stop  the  work. 

During  the  last  decade  great  has  been  the  loss  of  the  Church 
of  eminent  men.  To  say  nothing  of  our  own  Continent,  I  may 
look  abroad  and  remark  the  blanks  that  have  been  made  by  the 
removal  of  such  men  as  Christlieb,  of  Bonn  and  Bersier,  of  Paris; 
Liddon,  of  England,  and  Spurgeon — of  what  country  shall  we  call 
him?  Let  us  say  Spurgeon,  of  Christendom,  for  all  claim  him  as 
their  own. 

Our  Southern  Church  has  been  dignified  and  adorned  by  an 
illustrious  Triumvirate.  Born  amidst  the  throes  of  the  greatest 
revolution  in  modern  times,  it  needed  the  wisdom  and  experience 
of  men  qualified  by  nature  and  by  grace  for  the  responsible  task 
ol  giving  it  symmetrical  and  Scriptural  forms ;  of  conserving  the 


28  Robert  Lewis  Dabncy — In  Metiioriam 

principles  embodied  in  the  Westminster  standards  and  of  graft- 
ing upon  them  wliatever  might  give  these  time-honored  truths 
new  apphcations  and  new  efficiency. 

No  church  on  this  continent  has  been  more  favored  of 
heaven  in  liaving  at  its  very  organization  three  such  men  as 
Thornwell,  Palmer  and  Dabney — each  fitted  by  splendid  genius, 
profound  scholarship  and  consecration  to  the  noblest  ends,  to  give 
direction  to  its  future  life  and  to  enrich  it  for  all  time  by  their 
published  contributions  to  theological  science. 

Two  of  this  illustrious  Triumvirate  have  been  called  to  a 
higher  service;  one  still  survives  to  find  each  succeeding  year 
crowned  with  fresh  benedictions. 

The  places  of  such  leaders  may  be  occupied  without  being 
filled.  And  where  are  the  champions  who  are  ready  to  take  up 
the  weapons  fallen  from  their  hands  and  cheer  on  the  Church 
to  renewed  victories.  We  all  know  how  the  loss  of  one  great 
statesman  has  sometimes  defeated  measures  by  which  the  pro- 
gress of  prosperity  of  a  nation  might  have  been  promoted  for  gen- 
erations. And  who  does  not  know  that  in  a  great  crisis  in  na- 
tic  nal  history  the  death  of  a  single  distinguished  leader  has  made 
the  independence  of  that  people  impossible  for  all  time.  So,  in 
the  Church,  the  work  goes  on  haltingly,  wearily,  and  is  often  tem- 
porarily crushed. 

It  was  so  when  the  reformations  which  attempted  to  spring 
up  often  before  Luther  was  born  were  put  down,  such  as  that  of 
Arnold  of  Brescia,  and  that  of  Savonarola,  and  of  John  Huss.  It 
was  so  when  Coligny  and  Conde  fell.  It  was  so  when  other  re- 
formers were  put  down ;  their  fall  was  the  signal  of  the  decline  of 
the  great  work  they  undertook. 

Among  the  lessons  to  be  learned  from  the  bereavements  that 
make  the  world  poorer  and  the  Church  emptier  is  this  :  The  need 
of  earnest  prayer  to  God  that  He  would  raise  up  and  qualify  men 
who  can  take  the  places  of  the  departed  and  efficiently  hasten 
the  accomplishment  of  His  great  purpose  of  mercy  and  grace 
by  which  this  revolted  world  is  to  be  brought  back  to  its  rightful 
allegiance — men  who,  if  not  inspired  men,  like  Moses  and  Isaiah, 
or  like  David,  who  composed  the  psalms  which  animated  the  sac- 
ramental army  on  its  march  to  final  victory;  or  like  Paul,  who 


Robert  Lewis   Duhney  -^In   l\fevior'uuii  29 

girdled  the  larlli  with  a  zone  of  li^lU  and  ff'ory.  ^'"'  wrote  tlie 
Epistles  wliieli  have  shaped  the  tlicolo^ncal  thotight  of  the  world  ; 
at  least,  like  their  successors,  who  thoUf:;h  uninspired,  yet  pos- 
sessed the  consecrated  genius  and  learning  t(j  meet  the  great  exi- 
gencies which  are  always  arising  in  the  history  of  the  Church. 
Who  can  say  that  such  men  are  not  needed  now  to  combat  great 
errors  and  arrest  the  tide  of  secularism,  false  philanthrojjy,  and 
atsaulls  u[)on  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures  which  prevail  even 
in  lands  where  Christianity  is  sujjjjosed  to  exist  in  its  purest 
form?  Let  us  beseech  the  Great  Head  of  the  Church  to  bless  it 
with  more  of  power  in  the  pulpit,  power  with  the  pen,  power  in  the 
professor's  chair,  the  power  of  sanctified  scholarshii),  the  power 
of  consecrated  lives  in  every  department  of  Church  work  and 
Christian  enterprise.  The  scholar  is  a  product  of  slow  growth,  of 
patient  toil,  and  a  rare  product  even  after  the  most  protracted  toil. 
Kvery  day  we  have  new  illustrations  of  the  difficulty  of  finding 
men  ([ualificd  for  the  high  positions  which  death  makes  vacant 
by  the  removal  of  the  great  and  good,  although  there  never  was  a 
time,  perlKi])s,  when  the  Cluuch  was  fuller  of  men  of  average 
al)ility. 

In  deploring  such  a  loss  as  the  one  which  makes  us  mourners 
this  afternoon,  we  will  not  forget  the  most  blessed  of  all  conso- 
lations: Heaven  gains  what  we  lose,  and  becomes  richer  and 
more  attractive  to  us.  True,  the  Lamb  is  the  liglit  thereof,  but 
our  departed  ones  stand  disclosed  in  that  light,  and  reflect  it 
down  to  us.  We  love  them  all  the  more  because  they  shine 
in  the  beauty  of  their  Lord  and  ours.  We  remember  our 
brother,  beloved  now  in  the  rest  and  peace  and  blessedness  of  the 
true  home.  We  remember  those  whom  he  has  left  behind  for 
awhile,  and  it  comforts  us  to  know  that  there  is  one  hand  gentle 
enough  to  bind  up  the  bleeding  heart  and  soft  enough  to  wipe 
away  the  tears  of  bereavement;  one  who  is  the  husband  of  the 
widow  and  the  father  of  the  fatherless;  one  who  is  able  to  sanctify 
to  us  our  deepest  distress  and  to  bring  us  all  by  ways  of  His  own 
choosing  to  the  end  of  life's  journey  and  through  the  bright  gate 
of  Paradise  into  the  land  of  eternal  light  and  glory. 


A  LIGHT  GONE. 


BY    COL.    L.    S.    MARYE. 


[From  the  Richmond  (Va.)  Times  of  January  9th,  1898.] 

The  Times  has  announced  the  death  at  Victoria,  Texas, 
on  Tuesday  last,  of  Dr.  Robert  L.  Dabney.  His  remains  were 
brought  to  Hampden  Sydney,  and  on  I'riday  afternoon,  interred 
in  the  cemetery  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary.  This  was 
the  appropriate  spot  in  which  his  earthly  frame  should  take  its 
last  and  long  repose,  for  it  was  during  the  thirty  years  of  his  con- 
nection with  the  Seminary  that  his  great  intellect  put  forth  the 
most  vigorous  and  varied  displays  of  its  mighty  powers.  In  18811, 
chiefly  on  account  of  failing  health,  he  accepted  the  chair  of  Moral 
Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Texas,  it  being  thought  that  the 
warmer  climate  of  that  region  would  prove  beneficial.  And  now 
after  more  than  fourteen  years  of  reluctant  exile,  sweetly  as  a 
child  upon  its  mother's  breast,  he  sleeps  in  the  bosom  of  the  old 
Commonwealth  that  he  loved  and  served,  in  peace  and  in  war, 
with  a  fond  and  filial  devotion. 

Dr.  Dabney  possessed  a  mind  of  the  very  highest  order,  and 
of  the  most  far-reaching  powers.  It  is  the  opinion  of  many  se- 
date and  competent  judges  that  the  present  century  has  not  pro- 
duced a  more  vigorous  and  penetrating  intellect,  certainly  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic. 

In  a  letter  written  to  Dr.  Walter  Jones,  on  January  2d,  1814, 
Mr.  Jefiferson  gives  an  exceedingly  interesting  delineation  of  Gen- 
eral Washington,  in  the  course  of  which  he  says :  "His  mind  was 
great  and  powerful  without  being  of  the  very  first  order  ;  his  pene- 
tration strong,  though  not  so  acute  as  that  of  a  Newton,  Bacon 
or  Locke."  It  may  be,  and  doubtless  is,  that  at  intervals  in  the 
slow  centuries  you  discern  an  intellect,  here  and  there,  an  Aris- 
totle, a  Bacon,  a  Newton,  more  acute,  more  penetrating,  more 
powerful  than  that  possessed  by  the  subject  of  this  notice,  but 
they  are  rare,  very  rare. 

In  conversation  with  an  accomplished  minister  who,  two  or 
three  years  since  was  called  from  a  \^irginia  pulpit, to  a  chair  in 


Robert  Lewis  Dabney — /;/   Memoriam  \\\ 

tlie  Columbia  (S.  C.)  Tlicolo{;;ical  Seminary,  the  writer  asked 
tliat  pentleman  iiow  lie  would  compare  the  three  men  fjenerally 
rci'u^i^nizod  as  the  most  eminent  in  the  Southern  Presbyterian 
Church.  Two  (jf  them  are  still  living  and  it  is  not  necessary  to 
call  their  names.     Replying  slowly  and  meditatively  he  said:  "Dr. 

is  perhaps  the  best  furnished  of  the  three.     Dr.  

is  the  most  elo(|uent  and  attractive  in  the  pulpit;  but  for  blasting 
rocks,  I  would  take  Dr.  Dabney."  One  can  see  the  picture  of  the 
did  Titau  si)litting  asunder  the  theological  problems  with  giant 
p(  w  der,  each  grain  the  size  of  a  man's  tluunh  or  a  minnie  ball. 

ilut  it  was  not  alone  for  his  great  powers  of  mind  that  his 
memory  will  be  cherished.  In  elevation  of  character,  and  in  at- 
tributes of  heart,  he  was  equally  to  be  admired  and  more  ten- 
derly to  be  loved.  His  was  stalwart  strength  blended  with  in- 
efi'ablc  sweetness.  His  fit  symbol  was  the  mighty  monarch  of  the 
forest  that  towers  high  above  its  fellows,  companionlcss  in  the 
a/ure  concave,  its  imperial  crown  fanned  and  caressed  by  the 
sweet  breath  and  soft  kisses  of  that  pure  atmosphere.  And  as  the 
fall  of  such  forest  monarch  shakes  the  solid  earth,  and  sends  for 
countless  leagues  resounding  tumult  in  the  troubled  air,  so  will  the 
death  of  this  great  and  good  man  excite  an  all-pervading  sense  of 
distress  and  bereavement  throughout  the  bounds  of  the  Southern 
Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church;  nay,  throughout  the 
bounds  of  the  South,  without  distinction  of  sect,  for  much  of  his 
life-long  labor  and  service  of  heart  and  head  was  devoted  to  the 
defence  and  vindication  of  his  beloved  South.  Rut  it  is,  of 
course,  in  the  ecclesiastical  denomination  in  which  he  was  the 
foremost  figure  and  acknowledged  leader  that  his  death  will  be 
most  keenly  felt  and  deeply  deplored.  These  his  peculiar  friends 
in  the  ties  of  ecclesiastical  associations,  feel  in  the  extinguishment 
of  this  great  light,  as  we  may  imagine  the  seafaring  dwellers  on  the 
coast  of  Cornwall  felt  when  the  mighty  Eddystone  light-house 
was  swept  away  by  the  angry  sea,  and  when  that  steady,  far-reach- 
ing beacon  went  out  in  darkness  and  dismay. 

It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  Dr.  Dabney's  mental  powers  re- 
mained to  the  last  unimpaired.  There  was  no  touch  of  decadence 
to  be  seen  or  felt  in  the  working  of  the  glorious  machinery.  .A.I- 
though  he  had  for  four  years  been  totally  blind,  there  was  no 


32  Robert  Lewis  Dabney — In  Memoriani 

abatciiieiU  of  his  intellectual  labors.  Within  the  past  six  monlhs 
he  has  delivered  a  most  delightful  and  instructive  scries  of  K-ctures 
at  Davidson  College  and  at  the  Columbia  Theological  Seminary. 
If  I  may  borrow  the  fine  phrase  of  Milton,  he  bade  adieu  to  the 
scenes  of  earth  while  yet  "soaring  in  the  high  reason  of  his  fan- 
cies, with  his  garland  and  his  singing  robes  al:)out  him." 

\\'hen  a  man  like  this  is  stricken  down,  it  seems  that  in  the 
eclipse  and  extinction  of  such  powers  and  such  erudition  an  irre- 
parable loss  has  been  suffered.  And  in  a  certain  sense  so  it  is. 
And  yet  in  the  benign  arrangement  of  Providence  such  men  pre- 
pare others  to  take  their  places,  and  the  cause  of  truth  and  learn- 
ing is  thus  preserved  and  transmitted,  even  as  in  the  Grecian 
games  the  swift  runntirs  of  the  torch  race,  delivering  the  blazing 
brand  from  one  to  another,  imitated  the  successive  generations  of 
mankind,  who  hand  down  the  fire  of  knowledge  which  the  crafty 
Prometheus  stole  from  Heaven.  The  year  that  Galileo  died  wit- 
nessed the  birth  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  The  truth  I  am  endeavor- 
ing to  present  is  conspicuously  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Dr.  Dab- 
ney. Year  by  year  for  almost  half  a  century  he  sent  forth  from  the 
Theological  Seminary  at  Hampden  Sydney,  and  from  the  Univer- 
sity of  Texas,  devoted  bands  of  young  men  to  enter  the  fields  of 
Christian  labor  and  of  splendid  scholarship.  In  the  lives  and  la- 
bors of  these  his  pupils,  as  well  as  in  his  many  published  volumes, 
the  learning  and  acquisitions  which  in  one  aspect  are  buried  with 
him,  are  in  another  sense  snatched  from  the  grave  and  endowed 
with  the  power  of  an  endless  life.  In  such  instances  we  may  trulv 
say: 

Alike  are  life  and  death 
Where  life  in  death  survives, 

And  the  uninterrupted  breath 
Inspires  a  thousand  lives. 

So  when  a  great  man  dies. 

For  years  beyond  our  ken 
The  Hght  he  leaves  behind  him  lies 

Upon  the  paths  of  men. 


r.r.iN  i    i.KWis  DAB^^:^■. 

Austin,  Texas,  about  l.'^iLV 


A  LOVIvR  OF  THE  SOUTH. 

BY    MK.    J.    H.    RICK,    JR. 

I  From  Tlie  States  (Columbia,  S.  C.)  of  January  9th,  1898.  J 
Dr.  I)al)iiey's  recent  visit  to  Cohiinbia*  proved  to  be  his  last. 
As  announced  in  The  States  on  Wednesday,  the  venerable  man 
has  entered  into  rest,  so  that  his  visit  here  will  possess  a  solemn 
and  abiding  interest,  calling  to  mind  the  dying  patriarch  as  he  is 
set  forth  in  the  Bible  story — with  gaze  fixed  on  eternity  and  yet 
tinctured  with  tender  love  for  those  left  to  face  the  storms  and 
trials  of  earth. 

As  Dr.  Dabney  sat  in  the  pulpit  of  the  First  Presbyterian 
Cliiuch  the  other  day  and  preached  a  sermon  long  to  be  remem- 
bireil  by  those  who  heard  it,  his  appearance  was  both  venerable 
and  patriarchical.  As  Dr.  Joynes  admirably  expressed  it,  "He 
symbolized  the  union  of  a  Christian  apostle  with  old  Homer." 
The  towering  figure,  majestic  though  recumbent,  the  flowing 
locks  and  the  sightless  eyes  and  withal  the  fire  and  passion  of  his 
utterances, proved  the  aptness  and  justness  of  the  characterization. 
That  in  a  few  words  pictures  the  great  Virginian  as  he  was.  The 
old  heroic  poetry  lived  in  him  and  found  a  vent  in  the  beauty  and 
worth  of  his  long  and  illustrious  life ;  and  the  deathless  spirit  of 
the  Beserkir's  fired  him  to  the  last.  He  was  a  born  gladiator, 
though  he  combated  principalities  and  powers  and  not  foes  of 
flesh  and  blood.  Dabney  never  waited  for  evil  to  mass  its  forces ; 
he  fell  on  it  with  savage  fury  in  its  camp— tracked  the  beast  to  its 
lair  and  there  laid  hold  with  the  dauntless  courage  of  his  kind. 

And  there  was  that  in  him  that  cannot  perish.  The  lesson 
of  such  a  life  deserves  close  reading  and  diligent  consideration. 
In  a  material  sense  he  would  have  bettered  his  fortunes  by  a  more 
temperate  tone  in  dealing  with  the  many  questions  which  his  in- 
tellect grappled.  But  it  was  the  nature  of  the  princely  man  to 
spurn  anything  that  savored  of  a  compromise  of  principle.     He 

*Dr.  Dabney  visited  Columbia   in  October,  1897,  for  the  purpose  of 
delivering  a  course  of  lectures  before  the  Theological  Seminary. 


34  Robert  Lewis  Dabney — /?/   Memoriam 

fought  long  and  hard,  and  died  unconquered  and  not  convinced 
of  the  efficiency  of  gunpowder  and  the  bayonet  to  control  reason 
or  subvert  truth. 

It  is  of  course  beyond  the  province  of  a  newspaper  to  enter 
into  a  discussion  of  Dr.  Dabney 's  controversial  writings  or  to 
examine  his  contentions  on  theological  subjects.  It  is  sufficient 
to  say  that  he  saw  clearly  and  stated  exactly.  His  reasoning  was 
cogent  and  profound.  The  style  with  which  he  treated  the  most 
abstruse  themes  was  always  refreshing  and  sparkled  with  an 
originality  that  charmed  the  reader.  It  never  lacked  the  spice 
of  variety.  As  an  example,  we  might  cite  for  those  interested  in 
fi^rther  investigation,  the  article  on  pentecostal  baptism  in  the 
Piesbyterian  Quarterly  Review  (1895),  where  his  great  powers 
are  seen  to  peculiar  advantage  in  a  disquisition  upon  one  of  the 
deepest  and  richest  themes  that  ever  evoked  the  curious  inquiry 
of  the  human  mind. 

Dr.  Dabney  believed  in  the  South  and  in  her  institutions  and 
was  a  constant  defender  of  both.  He  was  a  member  of  the  fa- 
mous General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  that  met 
in  Charlotte  in  1864  and  threw  down  the  gage  of  battle  to  the 
world.  The  attitude  of  the  Church  toward  the  institution  of 
slavery  was  defined  with  a  clearness  and  precision  which  drew 
on  it  a  fusillade  of  wrath  and  invective. 

On  his  recent  visit  here,  Dr.  Dabney  spoke  of  it  to  the 
present  writer  and  explained  the  circumstances.  They  were,  in 
short,  that  slavery  was  recognized  as  an  e.xisting  legal  domestic 
institution  by  the  Holy  Scriptures.  The  church  had,  therefore, 
no  power  to  condemn  or  to  approve  it,  but  was  charged  with 
making  it  useful.  And  as  Dr.  Dabney  further  expressed  it: 
■'Slavery  had  been  abolished  in  the  British  colonies  and  through- 
out Europe.  By  a  special  dispensation  of  Providence  it  had  been 
permitted  to  continue  in  the  Southern  States."  Thence  the  ac- 
tion of  the  Presbyterian  Church  formulated  in  the  now  world- 
famous  Resolutions.  He  believed  it  then;  he  believed  it  and 
uttered  it  to  the  day  of  his  death — one  man  at  least  not  submerged 
in  the  on-reaching  sea  of  modernism ;  but  who  "saved  his  crown  of 
spiritual  manhood"  in  a  dark  and  evil  time — an  old  world  hero 
risen  above  the  wreck  of  all  that  he  cherished  and  fought  for. 


Robot  I.m'is   Pabtiey  -  In  Mcmoriam  •'?•') 

I  las  it  |)(rislic(!  iiKfily ?  Are  the  l)eauty,  the  glory,  the  chiv- 
alry, llic  itislitiitidiis  and  lla-  crccil  of  the  old  South  but  so  many 
shrivrUil  and  fossilized  remains  of  an  archaic  age? 

I )!(!  it  all  "wax  old  like  a  garment"  and  then  return  to  dust? 
Modern  tenrhing  would  have  us  believe  it;  modern  turncoats  are 
ready  to  criticise  and  bow  to  a  new  order,  raised  to  nobility  by 
dollars  got  Cod  knows  how.  I'.ut  it  is  nothing  but  a  slcek-faccd 
modern  lie.  The  old  South  cannot  die.  The  price  of  its  betrayal 
has  been  paid,  but  wc  shall  sec  about  that.  All  that  was  true  in  it 
will  live;  all  that  was  best  in  it  will  survive  though  temporarily 
hidden  under  a  cloud.  ]''or  all  that  the  host  of  thinkers  and  doers 
strove  (o  attain  there  is  a  reward  forthcoming  somewhere.  No 
bad  cause  ever  had  men  like  Lee  and  Jackson  to  fight  its  bat- 
tles, nor  intellects  like  Calhoun,  Thornwell,  Hammond,  Bled- 
soe, Dabney  and  Laws  to  settle  its  problems.  .Ml  these  earnest 
souls  are  the  warrant  that  truth  was  there  and  just  so  sure  as 
truth  itself  is  eternal,  will  the  cause  endure  to  the  end — not  per- 
haps in  the  form  we  knew  it,  for  truth  has  many  faces,  but  in  its 
essence  the  same  always. 

In  General  Hill's  Magazine,  "The  Land  We  Love,"  Dr. 
Dabney  published  nearly  30  years  ago,  a  paper,  which  had  form- 
erly been  delivered  at  Davidson  College,  in  which  he  took  little 
account  of  the  recent  conquest  of  our  Southern  land,  but  to  a 
danger,  then  remote,  he  called  earnest  attention  and  that  was  the 
flood  of  wild  notions  that  would  sweep  over  the  South  and  im- 
peril her  existence.  It  was  like  prophecy ;  the  flood  has  come ; 
the  South  is  tottering  to  its  foundations  and  the  "only  typically 
American  portion  of  the  Commonwealth"  is  threatened  with  ex- 
tinction, so  that  it  may  be  truly  referred  to  hereafter  by  the  mod- 
ern vulgarism,  "a  section."  Our  teachers,  preachers  and  press 
have  a  grave  and  present  duty  to  perform. 

The  soul  that  has  striven  truly,  though  the  strife  may  have 
been  long  and  hard,  has  its  own  rich  reward.  Robert  L.  Dabney 
has  his  now  in  a  brighter  land.  The  "knightliest  of  the  knightly 
band"  of  great  Virginians  who  have  shed  honor  and  renown 
upon  their  native  State  has  sheathed  his  sword  and  "entered  into 
rest."  Not  unlike  in  his  mental  equipment  those  warlike  bishops 
of  the  middle  ages  who  wielded  sword  and  bludgeon  when  the 


36  Robert  Letnis  Dabney — In  Memoriam 

foe  overran  the  country,  and  yet  all  unlike  them  in  its  beauty  and 
gentleness  of  his  character.  Stonewall  Jackson's  chief  of  staf? 
has  reported  for  duty  at  Headquarters  on  the  shining  plains  of 
Heaven! 

What  we  intended  to  illustrate  in  the  foregoing  was  the 
value  of  the  life  force  of  such  a  man ;  it  transcends  in  worth  and 
in  importance  all  the  systems  of  all  the  schools  and  will  lie  on 
this  generation  like  a  benediction.  On  all  departments  his  keen 
eye  rested ;  on  every  abuse  descended  his  malediction  like  a  whip 
of  scorpions.  For  over  half  a  century  he  had  borne  himself  in 
the  heat  of  the  battle  and  had  passed  into  the  dim  half-twilight 
of  age  a  stern,  splendid  figure  with  eternal  youth  in  his  heart  and 
with  the  joy  of  hope  on  his  lips.  Remember,  the  old  south  made 
such  as  these.  They  were  her  jewels;  they  remain  her  monu- 
ments; they  were  nurtured  on  her  bosom  and  they  depart  with 
her  blessing.     They 

"Kept  the  faith  of  men  and  saints 
Serene  and  pure  and  bright." 

As  Taine  wrote  of  Shakespeare  : — 

"Only  this  great  age  could  have  cradled  such  a  child." 


THE  TEACHER  AND  FRIEND. 

BY  REV.  DR.  THORNTON  R.  SAMPSON. 

On  Sunday  afternoon,  January  30tli,  1898,  memorial  serv- 
ice'; were  held  in  the  Opera  Mouse,  at  Sherman,  Texas,  by  .Mil- 
dred Lee  Camp  of  United  Confederate  Veterans,  to  commemor- 
ate the  patriotism  and  virtues  of  General  L.  S.  Ross  and  Major 
K.  L.  Dabney,  D.  D. 

After  the  address  had  been  made  in  honor  of  General  Ross, 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Thornton  R.  Sampson,  president  of  Austin  Collei,'e, 
a  son  of  Rev.  Dr.  Francis  S.  Sampson,  and  a  pupil  of  Dr.  Dabney 
while  he  was  professor  in  Ihmm  Theological  Seminary,  spoke,  in 
part,  as  follows : 

"But  peace  too  hath  her  heroes.  In  the  death  of  Dr.  Robert 
I,.  Dabney  not  only  has  the  South  lost  a  most  valiant,  coura- 
geous and  persistent  defender,  both  with  sword  and  pen,  but  the 
Southern  Presbyterian  Church  her  greatest  theologian  and  the 
world  one  of  her  greatest  teachers."  Then  followed  a  brief  out- 
line of  his  life  and  work.     *     *     *     * 

"It  is  not  upon  the  virtues  of  Major  Dabney  as  a  soldier  or 
upon  the  ability  of  Dr.  Dabney  as  a  theologian  that  I  feel 
called  to  dwell  today,  for  his  published  works,  'Defense  of  Vir- 
ginia,' 'Life  of  Stonewall  Jackson'  and  'Systematic  Theology' 
speak  for  themselves ;  but  it  is  a  glad  duty  to  bear  testimony  to 
his  excellence  as  a  teacher  and  his  faithfulness  as  a  friend,  which 
are  less  generally  known. 

"Dr.  Dabney  was  a  bom  teacher,  and  he  loved  his  work. 
It  has  been  my  privilege,  as  a  student,  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  some 
of  the  most  distinguished  scholars  and  teachers  of  America, 
Great  Britain  and  the  continent  of  Europe,  such  as  McGuffey, 
Gildersleeve,  Davidson,  Delitzsch  and  Luthardt,  but  Dr.  Dabney 
was  the  peer  of  any  and  in  some  respects  the  superior  of  them  all. 
He  always  left  his  impress  upon  the  mind  of  his  students.  One 
might  difTor  with  him  in  conclusions  but  could  never  deny  the 
force  and  aptness  of  his  reasoning.  His  thorough  mastery  of  the 
subject,  his  clear  and  thorough  analysis  of  it,  his  forceful,  apt  il- 
lustrations and  his  sympathetic  recognition  of  the  students'  diffi- 
culties gave  him  most  remarkable  force  as  a  teacher.     No  one 


38  Robert  Leiuis  Dabncy — In   Mcmoriam 

who  desired  to  learn  could  fail  to  make  ])rop;rcss  or  get  profit 
under  his  lucid,  inspiring  tuition. 

"It  is,  however,  chiefly  of  another  striking  side  of  Dr.  Dab- 
nty's  character  that  I  wish  to  speak.  Sonic  who  knew  Dr.  Daij- 
ney  only  through  his  publications  have  formed  the  idea  that  he 
was  a  stern,  severe  man  lacking  in  sympathy  and  affection,  ft 
carmot  be  denied  that  some  expressions,  in  a  certain  class  of  his 
articles,  especially  those  concerning  the  civil  war,  have  given  just 
ground  for  such  inference. 

"But  it  should  be  stated  and  it  can  be  asserted  with  all  posi- 
tiveness,  for  it  is  a  fact  to  which  all  who  came  in  contact  with 
him  can  testify,  that  such  was  not  the  case.  He  was  a  kind 
neighbor,  a  tender  and  most  afifectionate  husband,  an  over-indul- 
gent parent  and  a  most  faithful  friend.  In  fact,  he  scarcely 
seemed,  with  all  his  acumen,  to  be  able  to  see  the  faults  of  a  friend 
and  his  judgment  possibly  failed  him  oftener  in  speaking  or  writ- 
ing of  those  whom  he  loved  than  at  any  other  time. 

'"All  of  his  old  students  will  testify  to  this  striking  character- 
istic, but  the  most  impressive  illustration  can  be  found  in  his  de- 
votion to  the  memory  of  his  early  friend.  Dr.  Francis  S.  Samp- 
son. The  first  published  work  from  his  pen  was  an  enthusiastic 
memorial  of  him  and  the  last  work  of  his  life,  the  morning  of  the 
day  of  his  death  was  a  glowing  tribute  to  the  memory  of  the 
same  friend  for  whom  his  afifectionate  admiration  seemed  to 
grow  with  his  years. 

"It  is  an  honor  and  a  privilege  that  I  enjoy  today,  as  I  stand 
before  this  great  audience  to  testify  to  the  undiminished  affec- 
tion of  this  great  man  for  his  early  friend,  my  father,  who  died 
before  my  life  could  lisp  his  name,  forty-five  years  ago.  Noth- 
ing could  have  been  more  beautiful  than  this  love  of  a  strong 
man,  for  one  whose  gifts,  whatever  they  were,  excited  no  senti- 
ment but  admiration  in  him. 

"Just  three  days  before  the  death  of  Dr.  Dabney  I  made  a 
pilgrimage  to  his  home  in  Southern  Texas,  and  can  never  for- 
get his  warm  welcome,  his  sympathetic  interrogatories,  his 
prophetic  counsels,  giving  evidence  still  of  his  warm  affection 
for  his  old  friend  which  neither  blindness,  nor  age,  nor  time 
could  chill. 

"He,  indeed,  "loved  him  as  his  own  soul.'  " 


A  TRIBUTE. 

BY  RHV.   DR.  S.  TAVI.OK  MARTIN. 
I  From  The  Soutlicrn  Presbyterian,  January  20,  1898.] 

Dr.  Dabiiey  is  dead.  The  Soutlicrn  Church  is  in  leans.  Her 
faithful,  tireless,  powerful  defender  during  the  period  of  her  strug- 
gle and  persecution,  has  exchanged  the  warfare  of  the  Church 
militant  for  the  glory  and  rest  of  the  Church  triumphant. 

Her  most  gifted  instructor  in  the  mysteries  of  redemption,  in 
the  science  of  Ueity  is  a  pupil  of  the  great  Teacher,  seeing  Jesus 
as  He  is  and  receiving  from  Him  the  revelations  of  His  grace,  tlie 
unfolding  of  His  character,  the  glories  of  His  Kingdom  which  on 
earth,  "Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  hath  entered  into 
the  heart  of  man." 

The  commonwealth  and  the  nation  has  sustained  an  irrepar- 
able loss  in  the  withdrawal  of  a  man  whose  philosophic  mind,  en- 
riched by  the  history  of  nations,  governments  and  constitutions, 
recognized  the  only  statesmanship  that  can  secure  perpetuity 
and  prosperity  and  peace,  the  statesmanship  that  is  founded  on 
truth  and  righteousness.  The  rapidly  vanishing  remnant  of  the 
old  Confederacy  mourns  the  loss  of  one  of  the  ablest  defenders  of 
a  cause  as  true  and  principles  as  just  as  any  for  which  a  sw'ord 
was  ever  drawn  or  the  sacrifice  of  human  life  ever  made.  The 
Church  of  God  of  all  denominations  has  lost  the  labors  of  a  mighty 
champion,  who  with  unswerving  fidelity  advanced  and  defended 
these  fundamental  truths  without  which  there  could  be  no  true 
church,  no  religion,  no  gospel  of  salvation,  no  glad  tidings,  no 
hope  for  lost  and  ruined  man.  All  through  the  ranks  of  God's 
servants  in  the  ministry  there  is  a  painful  sense  of  loss  of  a  faithful 
comrade  and  fellow  laborer,  of  a  revered  father  in  Israel.  In 
many  a  quiet  study  in  the  manses  of  the  Southern  Church,  as 
God's  servants  ponder  their  work  and  its  difficulties  and  obstacles, 
as  they  look  out  upon  the  hosts  of  the  enemy  and  see  the  danger 
to  the  flock,  there  is  a  feeling  of  overwhelming  loss,  of  almost 
helpless  dismay,  and  of  keenest  personal  bereavement,  as  they 


40  Robert  Lewis  Dabney — In  Memoriam 

realize  that  their  revered  instructor,  the  faithful  guide,  the  sympa- 
thizing friend  is  no  more;  but  there  is  mingled  with  their  grief 
profound  gratitude  for  the  privilege  of  having  enjoyed  the  in- 
structions, the  fellowship,  the  friendship  of  such  a  man. 

The  versatility  of  Dr.  Dabney's  genius  was  one  of  his  most 
striking  characteristics.  Had  he  occupied  Calvin's  position  he 
might  have  done  Calvin's  work.  Had  he  been  substituted  for 
John  Knox  he  could  have  performed  the  part  of  Knox.  If  dur- 
ing the  war  instead  of  being  on  the  staff,  he  had  been  in  the  line 
and  a  leader  of  men,  we  know  of  no  man  who  in  our  humble  judg- 
ment would  have  so  nearly  approximated  the  renowned  career  of 
Stonewall  Jackson. 

His  range  of  study  was  broad  and  his  scholarship  ac- 
curate, his  discussions  were  characterized  by  absolute  candor 
and  frankness.  There  was  no  attempt  to  obscure  the  strong 
points  of  his  adversary,  nor  was  there  any  evasion  of  the  objec- 
tions to  his  own  position.  His  modesty  added  a  charm  to  his 
greatness.  Numberless  incidents  recur  to  us  that  illustrate  this 
trait.  His  pupils  were  his  brethren,  he  seemed  to  ignore  the  dif- 
ference between  the  planes  on  which  his  students  and  their  teacher 
moved.  There  was  doubtless  less  need  for  formality  with  the  half 
dozen  of  us  that  constituted  the  post  bellum  class.  Certain  is  it 
when  a  student  was  reciting  that  the  class-room  was  the  arena  in 
which  was  exhibited  a  free  fight.  It  was  "give  and  take;"  the  stu- 
dents had  to  take  and  he  was  at  liberty  to  give  with  all  his  force. 
The  professor  often  played  the  roll  of  the  objector.  Probably  the 
mental  foundation  for  his  excellence  in  every  department  of 
human  activity  was  his  extraordinary  power  of  analysis.  In  deal- 
ing with  the  most  intricate  and  complex  subjects  he  seemed  to 
separate  from  it  all  its  accidentals  and  reveal  its  essence  in  its 
perspicuous  nakedness. 

Dr.  Dabney's  ability  as  a  profound  theologian,  his  power  as  a 
preacher,  his  extraordinary  gift  as  a  teacher,  his  accurate  analysis 
and  keen  acumen  as  a  metaphysician  are  readily  recognized,  but 
there  was  one  trait  not  observed  by  the  multitude,  but  known  by 
those  in  personal  contact  with  him.  That  was  his  gentleness.  He 
abhored  all  meanness,  all  trickery,  all  that  was  false.  When  with 
his  native  vigor  he  denounced  these  traits  men  would  naturally 


Robert   l.nvis   Dabyicy — In   Mcmoriam  41 

cotiiil  liim  severe.  1  le  lived  in  a  period  when,  in  the  church,  men 
were  willinj^  to  barter  away  their  independence,  their  professed 
convictions,  for  material  advantage  or  for  a  sentiment  of  unity, 
that  was  a  deceitful  form,  a  hollow  sham,  lie  lived  in  a  period 
when  men  who  had  won  military  renown,  renounced  the  cause, 
the  principles  for  which  they  professed  to  fight,  took  or  sought 
ofifice  under  the  conquerors  of  their  country  and  supported  an  ad- 
ministration and  a  party  that  was  persecuting  a  disarmed  and 
honorable  people,  with  a  more  cruel,  malignant  and  relentless 
hatred  than  had  characterized  any  period  of  open  warfare.  Dr. 
Dabney's  clear  analytic  mind  enabled  him  to  see,  that  the  adoption 
of  one  set  of  principles  during  their  prosperity,  their  renunciation 
in  adversity  and  the  espousal  of  another  set  as  much  the  contra- 
dictory of  the  former  as  light  is  of  darkness  or  life  is  of  death, 
was  an  impeachment  of  personal  integrity.  Ostracism  of  such 
men  was  not  due  to  difference  of  political  convictions,  but  to  the 
recognition  of  a  lack  of  principle.  He  recognized  the  fact  that 
war  was  not  only  a  calamity  but  a  crime.  That  no  man  could  vin- 
dicate his  right  to  engage  in  war,  except  when  it  becomes  his 
solemn  duty  to  fight.  He  saw  clearly  that  no  matter  how  brilliant 
the  achievements  of  such  men,  their  warfare  was  brigandage,  their 
capture  of  property  robbery,  their  killing  of  men,  murder.  Their 
proper  category  was  that  of  deserters.  In  the  face  of  all  the  me- 
naces and  oppressions  of  the  trying  period  of  destruetion  Dr.  Dab- 
ney  maintained  his  integrity.  He  spoke  the  truth.  It  hurt. 
Some  thought  him  austere  and  harsh,  but  with  all  his  contempt 
for  truculence  and  meanness  he  was  a  man  of  profound  and  tender 
affection.  It  is  the  memory  of  his  gentle  sympathy,  his  affection- 
ate friendship,  that  causes  us  to  bow  in  grief,  that  fills  our  heart 
with  sorrow,  because  we  have  lost  not  only  the  reverend  in- 
structor and  guide,  not  only  the  faithful  friend  and  brother,  but 
also  another  tender,  loving  father. 


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